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Sandy Mattox, MNSc., RN, began her tenure at UAMS in 1991.
Image by Evan Lewis
Reflections on a Long and Wide-Ranging Career in Myeloma
| After more than 25 years, Sandy Mattox, MNSc, RN, personifies the term “institutional knowledge” when it comes to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) Myeloma Center, part of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
Mattox’s extensive career at UAMS covers two periods, first from 1991-2000 and then from 2008 to July 2025, when she retired.
“When I first came to UAMS in 1991, those were the pioneering years in myeloma,” Mattox said. “I was the first nurse practitioner in the transplant clinic, and then after a year or so, I was asked to come to the statistical lab.”
“I worked with a mathematician who did all of the statistics and number crunching. I did all of the data collection for Total Therapy I, along with helping with getting abstracts together for publications, helping with grants, and doing whatever else was needed,” she added.
Mattox had an interesting start with myeloma.
“My introduction to myeloma was kind of weird. I was in nursing school in a rural hospital in Missouri in the late 1970s. I remember this one door had a piece of paper with ‘Multiple Myeloma: Keep Out’ handwritten on it. It was foreshadowing,” she said.
Since her return to UAMS in 2008, most of her time has been spent in support of the Myeloma Center physicians and staff.
“I’m honored and proud to work at UAMS and with the Myeloma Center. This is a good team of health care professionals — there’s a calmness here that helps everyone. They’re smart, dynamic, and committed to their patients,” said Mattox.
Mattox says she plans to ease into retirement.
“I’m probably going to work part time as a PRN to ease myself in my next life,” Mattox said. “I also plan on working on my house. That’s something my husband and I have been doing for years. I love working with power tools, and that’s something my husband and I want to get into. My passion is refinishing furniture.”
“I’ve been going hard for 45 years — how do you turn that off?” she said with a smile.